Page 33 of Blood Revealed

We brace, but then, Boss does something completely unexpected. “Someone get my boy on the line,” he says. “I need to hear my boy.”

Right. Get his boy. I pull my phone to do that, but Hero beats me to it, calling back home. Escalante couldn’t have picked a worse time to go after Hannah with all our injured men. Duke takes the cell from Hero pressing speaker in order for us all to hear.

It rings twice. He’s calling Badger, one of the men we left back home. “Whatcha need, brother?” he asks.

“It’s Duke,” Our president answers. “We’re officially puttin’ the club on lockdown. It’s bad out here. Women don’t leave at all, got me?”

“Do you want us to go looking for ’em? I ain’t seen a woman around here in a while.”

“The fuck?” Duke barks. “All the women or just Hannah?” he asks, turning his scowl at me. Like I could control Hannah’s movements. I hardly had the time to make her my old lady before being drawn into this shit.

“None of ’em,” Badger replies.

“Shit,” Duke grumbles. “Where’s Benedict? He was supposed to be on my woman.”

“He come runnin’ into the club, packed his shit and raced out. Ain’t heard from him since.”

I huff out a suffering breath and press my palms to my eyes, hoping to stave off the headache I feel coming on. We all know what Badger’s not saying.

Duke hangs up with him and looks to us. “Get to Texas. Now.”

7.

Hannah

We have to find out if Tommy knows anything yet. “Take me to the office,” Maryanne suggests. “It’ll be on his computer. If he types it on the laptop in his cruiser, it automatically updates to his desktop.”

How the hell are we supposed to get to Tommy’s office inside the Thornbriar P.D? I don’t have to ask the question. Maryanne already knows what we’re thinking. “Leave it to me,” she says. “Just get us there.”

I order Maryanne to shoot off a quick text to Brighton in Frankie’s truck following behind us, letting them in on this leg of the plan.

We take a detour to include a stop at T.P.D. and I can’t help it, I suck in a breath and say a quick prayer that whatever scheme Maryanne has worked out in her head, it works. Elise is losing time. The longer they have her, the better the chance of them slipping over the border with her and if that happens, we’re screwed.

“All right, girls, I’m going to need all of you as a distraction,” Maryanne orders.

We file out of both trucks to follow her inside the building. Police officers are on high alert. The woman behind the desk greets Maryanne. “Tommy’s out on business, hon,” she says. “Don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“I know. I need to drop something in his office.”

“Go on back, but be quick,” she says. And since I’m the closest one standing next to Maryanne, she snags my arm to take me with her.

The other women begin a bombardment of questions concerning Elise and her kidnapping at anyone and everyone they see. They know exactly what to do without Maryanne having to explain it. Once we get back to Tommy’s office, Maryanne fishes a set of keys out of her purse, flipping through them until she reaches the one she needs.

“Tommy gave me his spare set for safe keeping,” she says. “I’ve come down here on several occasions when he’s working late to bring him dinner or whatever.” She unlocks the door then ushers me inside in front of her. “Now, your job is to stand up against that door so no one can get in while I’m working.”

“I can do that.”

While she fires up his desktop, I press my body against the door. She types in his password when the screen comes up and waits for the page she wants to load.

“Are you supposed to have his password?” I whisper.

“No. He’s not as discreet as he thinks he is,” she answers. And I can’t help it, despite the dire situation we’re in, I chuckle—low so as not to be heard through the door, but I chuckle.

She knows exactly what she’s doing, too. Knows all the places to type.

“Tommy works from home a lot,” she says. It’s eerie how the woman can answer my unspoken questions.

I let her do her thing. She grabs a notepad sitting by the keyboard and a pen to jot down pertinent information for us. Maryanne seems to be getting quite a bit of information. It’s scary how good she is. I’m glad she’s on our team.

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